Unremembered trauma not to blame for future problems

This is part four of four columns seeking to answer D.H.'s question about how we help a 3-year-old who has no memory of horrific sexual abuse.

D.H., you juxtaposed an unremembered childhood trauma with a concern for post traumatic stress disorder. I don't often find PTSD associated with repressed memories. That is, PTSD is usually exhibited by patients who remember most or all of the trauma causing the symptoms. What's notable, however, is that the PTSD patient might or might not realize the trauma and the symptoms are related.

With a 3-year-old, PTSD would be extraordinarily difficult to diagnose. Developmentally, it is normal for 3-year-olds to have a variety of reactions to separation anxiety (how children adapt to the increasing absence of the parent). Also, there is a wide developmental variability in children regarding sleep patterns. My first-born slept through the night at 6 weeks, then erupted at age 3 with "night terrors." My third-born was closer to 3 before he slept regularly through the night.

I'm saying that, should the child exhibit anxiety, sleep disruption or odd/severe symptoms regarding fear of dangers real and imagined, I would urge you to treat these issues separately, that is, not to rush to interpret them to the child as a consequence of the sexual abuse.

We do not want the inadvertent message to the child to be, "Honey, pretty much every unpleasant psycho-emotional experience you have for the rest of your life -- not to mention every interpersonal complication -- is the inevitable consequence of having been sexually abused." Such a message is crippling, unhelpful, disempowering and ultimately disrespectful. It deprives the child of the opportunity to develop inherent strengths and natural resiliency.

Caregivers must distinguish between two traumas: the trauma to the child, and the trauma to the caregiver. It's awful to watch your child suffer, to know that your child has suffered, to rage against the sickening helplessness the caregiver feels.

A teacher once smacked my boy in the back of the head. I was 300 miles away in a restaurant parking lot when I got the news, which turned out to be a good thing. The distance gave me a chance to think and feel my way through the first 21 or 22 things I thought would be good to say and do. Pretty sure there are laws against a couple of my early ideas. You gettin' my drift here?

By the time I talked to my boy, I was better able to separate my experience from his experience. My boy had plenty to handle, and, frankly, handled it in stride. No reason for him to have to bear his father's vulnerability, outrage and deeply personal reaction to issues of child abuse.

That's the difficult trick: to be there for this little girl, but to avoid the unwitting request that she also bear our grief, our guilt, our trauma.

Families narrate history to children. The narratives include beautiful stories, mundane stories and stories of injustice, horror and trauma. The stories might be unremembered by the child, partly remembered or actually (and sometimes differently) remembered.

But the history is narrated, not recounted. Meaning, the way we tell the story will have a lot to say about the consequences of that story for our child's life. I think of the 2-year-old on an Arizona camping trip stalked and dragged into the forest by a mountain lion. The boy has no memory of the event, but bears a scar on his face from the attack. How will his parents tell the story?

I think of the little girl in Texas who, at 3, fell into a well and survived there for some 18 hours before workers could reach her. No memory. How will the parents tell the story?

And, in this case, how (and when) do we narrate a story of evil? Because having sex with 3-year-olds is evil.

I urge parents to narrate traumatic histories with The Hero's Journey, as opposed to the narrative of You Poor Thing. The Hero's Journey is a story of destiny, survival, endurance, strength, rescue and good fortune. The Hero's Journey presupposes that evil, while powerful, is not the ultimate power in this universe. The Hero's Journey is a journey of suffering transformed into mission, vocation and profound values. The Hero did not deserve the suffering or the sometimes irreparable consequences, but nonetheless accepts radical responsibility to include this history in a life well-lived.

Some of the most beautiful parts of any life emerge paradoxically out of horror and brokenness. This little girl deserves that chance.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com.